Police siege on Besigye home illegal, says court

KAMPALA. Court yesterday declared that the continued police siege on Dr Kizza Besigye’s residence in Kasangati is illegal and ordered them to leave his home immediately.
The local Magistrate’s Court in Kasangati, Wakiso District also ordered that Dr Besigye be unconditionally freed from unlawful detention disguised as preventive arrest. The court also condemned his detention at his home, which is not gazetted as a prison under the law.
The court said that the issues stated by Dr Besigye in his petition were not disputed nor addressed by the affidavit of the State in reply to his complaints and hence they can be taken as truthful under the law.
“I find that the applicant (Dr Besigye) was unlawfully detained and in a place that is not authorised by law thus contravening the various articles of the Constitution,” Magistrate Prossy Katushabe declared yesterday.
Dr Besigye, a four-time presidential candidate, has since the February 18 general elections been violently arrested more than nine times by police every time he attempted to leave his house and has been confined there under what the State calls “preventive arrest.” In her ruling yesterday, the magistrate agreed with Dr Besigye’s submissions that his residence, where he was detained, is not an authorised detention centre.
Dr Besigye sued the Inspector General of Police, Gen Kale Kayihura, and the Police commander for Kampala North Region, seeking court to order his unconditional release from unlawful “preventive arrest and detention.”
In his application, Dr Besigye had also asked court to order Gen Kayihura and his subordinates to immediately stop violating his right to movement.
His sister Margaret Kifefe, in an affidavit in support of the petition, told court, during the hearing, that her brother’s freedom of movement was being denied due to the police siege. Ms Kifefe’s affidavit stated that whenever her brother tried to leave home, he would be arrested and taken to Nagalama Police Station in Mukono District and returned late in the night.
“The applicant (Dr Besigye) has never been charged in respect of all the said nine arrests and not been produced before any court...” Ms Kifefe stated in the affidavit.
She was referring to the nine times Besigye had been arrested by police between February 18 and April when he filed the petition. Dr Besigye’s lawyers argued that although Section 24 of the Police Act allows police to arrest a person upon a reasonable belief that such action is necessary to prevent crime, Article 23 of the Constitution which provides for personal liberty supersedes that law. The police have always justified the routine arrests of Dr Besigye on claims that they have intelligence information that once he goes to town, he would incite the population.
Responding to the ruling on his petition yesterday, Dr Besigye twitted: “the illegal acts of the police continue unfazed by the court ruling.”
In a separate communication yesterday with Daily Monitor, Dr Besigye said the siege was still continuing at his home by last evening in total disregard of the court ruling. Ms Winnie Byanyima, his wife, also twitted: “Police still blocking us from free movement. IGP determined to show Ugandans how not to obey the law.”
Dr Besigye filed the petition early this year after police confined him at his home in the aftermath of the February general elections which he claimed he won by 52 per cent but was robbed of victory.
During the hearing of the petition, the Director of Public Prosecutions applied to the High Court challenging the inclusion of Gen Kayihura on the case. The DPP said Gen Kayihura cannot be sued individually and the legal proceedings should instead be directed against the Attorney General. However, the High Court dismissed the DPP’s application and referred the case file back to Kasangati Magistrate’s Court.
Subsequently, the deputy Chief Justice, Steven Kavuma, issued an injunction stopping the hearing of all cases filed by Dr Besigye including this petition against Gen Kayihura, pending the conclusion of the Attorney General’s counter-petition challenging Besigye’s FDC party’s defiance campaign at the time.
However, the magistrate’s court in Kasangati proceeded to hear Dr Besigye’s petition which was disposed of yesterday.

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